Writer launches Palmyra X6 model and harness upgrades to cut token costs

Writer, which offers AI tools and agents for marketers, launched a new flagship model called Palmyra X6, aimed at solving the problem of expensive AI deployments. Built as a post-training variation on Z.ai's open source model GLM-5.2, the new system should provide deployment-ready capabilities at a much lower price. The company estimates the new model, combined with changes to the harness infrastructure, will cut costs for customers by as much as 50% for basic tasks. Together with the new model, the company also released significant upgrades to its standard agentic harness; both features are available to Writer clients starting Thursday. CEO May Habib told TechCrunch that enterprises are sick of chasing benchmarks and want flattening costs. The new approach emphasizes complex, multi-step tasks executed faster and with fewer tokens, with harness optimization as a crucial lever. A recent paper from Writer researchers found that changes in harness efficiency were a more reliable way to reduce costs than model choice, with costs falling an average of 40% across testing. For clients, the experience remains model-agnostic: Palmyra X6 will sit alongside other Writer models or outside models imported through Azure or Amazon Bedrock. Habib also sees the cost-cutting push as driving distrust toward major AI labs, which have a financial incentive to drive up token use.